


Paper Ninjas

by WickedBee



Series: Paper and Weapon [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betaed, Character Development, Chuunin Exams, Developing Friendships, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, I am grateful, Paper ninjas are not necessarily bad, Sakura refuses to do nothing in that month, She is studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-03 21:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13349829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedBee/pseuds/WickedBee
Summary: There are a few things Sakura Haruno knows she is.She is book smart.She is pretty.She is focused.She is a shinobi.Sakura Haruno is a paper ninja. Luckily for her, there is another person who uses paper and ink to fight too.(Alternatively, the preliminaries of the Chūnin Exams happens in another order, and Sakura sees Tenten fighting. She still loses, but her month off is used productively.)





	Paper Ninjas

**Author's Note:**

> I was very concerned with that month off. What was Sakura doing? She had a moment in the Forest of Death. I wasn't a flashy moment, but it was hers. So this is an alternative to what happened in that month of.  
> Alternatively, the preliminaries of the chunnin exams happened in another order and Sakura has seen Tenten fighting. She still lost, but her month off is used productively.
> 
> Featuring to Tenten and her shoes.
> 
> Edit: Now this series has a beta! sake2000 is helping me with it, so y'all will notice some changes. Right now, this one is the one finished.

It takes her five days of going to the bridge where her team meets before noticing Kakashi-sensei is not going appear. It takes a hospital visit to learn he is out there training Sasuke.

(It takes her hours of waiting in the harsh sun and cursing everything and everyone, both her and Inner screaming, before giving up. Kakashi-sensei doesn’t care about her. There has never been a motive for him to care.

 We are his students, Inner supplies in their mind. He is our sensei. It is his _duty._ He has invested more time teaching _Naruto-baka_ than us.

 “Well, Naruto has been a better ninja than us.” And is it not telling, when the deadlast is better than you?

 So what? Are we any less deserving? It is his fucking duty, Outer! He is being _paid_ for this. He didn’t teach us _anything_ , not even tree-walking. We did it alone in our first attempt, mind you. Of course we lost to Ino-pig. We were using Academy textbook techniques.  Ino is part of a clan, the _heir_ no less, and you can _bet_ she learned something with her teacher.

 “It was a draw, Inner. What do we do now? A jounin-sensei is supposed to teach their team of genin. If he is not going to do it, then what should we do?”

 Use this brain of ours, Outer. They called us paper ninjas. Well, what do paper ninjas do? How do they find solutions? Besides, we mustn't be the first genin to be neglected by a jounin-sensei. Those other paper ninjas, they did something to get where there are now.

 “We... we go to the library. We find paper and ink and books. We learn things by ourselves.”)

 

~~It takes her five days going of to the bridge where her team meets before noticing Kakashi-sensei is not going appear. It takes a hospital visit to learn he is out there training Sasuke.~~ It takes time for her to understand that while her teacher says to look underneath the underneath, he never did the same for her. It hurts. It is alright. ~~It is not.~~ Anyway, what matters is that she  learns a lesson that she is not going to forget. People will overlook her, for her pink hair, for her looks, for her crush, for her reserves. It will be their downfall.

 

* * *

 

Sakura Haruno walks, for the first time in months, into the Konoha Central Library. The smell of books have a calming effect, and she moves with more confidence than before, the weight of the world not on her shoulders anymore. This is her workplace and a home too. These were her friends when she and Ino became rivals. These books know so much. It is a shame she has not come in awhile She walks to the desk where the librarian chūnin is. Luckily, it is someone she knows today. Gumiya is an old acquaintance. She knew them since she was five years old, small and shy.

 “Good morning, Gumiya-san.”

 “Good morning, Sakura-chan. I heard you were promoted to genin. Congratulations! What can I do for you today?”

 “Thank you, Gumiya-san, and it was months ago.” She feels guilty. The librarians were always nice to her, and she has not stopped by here since graduation. They must have felt that she had abandoned them. She will make up for it in the future. “The truth is… I am not fitted for combat.” The admission...it weighs heavy on her tongue. It weighs heavy like her world, more than kunai could ever. But it is the truth, and the fact that she shares it willingly in a world of deception and lies? It is telling. “But I think I found something that could help me. There was this girl who used blades, strings, and seals in my chūnin exams. I am interested in the sealing part.”

 “Does she have a…” The librarian pauses as they try to find the right word. They do it a lot when they are trying to not be rude.  “... _peculiar_ teacher, two sides buns, and is a year older than you? If so, then I think you are talking about Tenten-chan.”

 “Yes, that’s her name! She was ill-matched against a wind-user, but her skills are...well...they’re _breathtaking_!” And they truly are. She would have won against a different genin there for sure. It makes sense that her team did not participate in the last exams if they were improving their skills to be above the rest of the competitors. “I don’t think I would store blades, but it seemed like a very good skill to learn. The theory behind it sounds interesting too. So, uh, could you help me?”

 “Sorry, Sakura-chan.” Her face crumbles. Of course. _Of course_ the things she find interest in are not easy to access. She should have learnt this lesson long ago. “The section on sealing we have here is not cleared for genin. Just to chūnin and above.”

 “Oh. That is…” Terrible. Horrendous. Soul crushing. “...a shame.” But something is not making sense. Tenten knows seals. Tenten is a genin too, so she _must_ have found information in another way. “But how does she know sealing?”

 Gumiya shrugs and looks at her with pity. Inner rages at this look, hates it, because they _aren’t_ pitiful. They are kunoichi, shinobi, _ninja_. They are no less than others, no matter what other people believe. “I think her teacher borrowed some sealing material when she couldn’t access it by herself. I suppose you cannot ask of the same from yours?” They sigh when she nods. Their face does not change, but Sakura has been in the library enough times to know when Gumiya is angry. Their hands approach their kunai-pouch, and  their fingers tremble just so.  They must be thinking about gutting or stabbing someone. It is possible. They’re probably thinking about Kakashi-sensei. It would be _hilarious_ if they pierced him, you know?  It would serve him right. Maybe. “Okay...okay, I am occupied right now and cannot help you, but if you still need aid next week, I can teach you. Hell, _I_ could learn a bit more too because I only know enough to create different storage scrolls. At the very least, you are going to learn something in the end. Anyway, this is the third option.”

 “What are the others?” Inner is dancing in their own mind, and Sakura does not stop the growing smile on her face. There is someone willing to teach her. Better yet, there is someone willing to learn something _just to teach her._ This is kind of mind-blowing. She is valid. She has valor. Kakashi-sensei maybe ~~doesn’t care~~ cannot see it because his eye is always looking at her teammates, but there are people out there who see her.

 “You could directly ask her for help. This is option one. Option two is going to her teacher and asking him to help you. Both choices have their merits.”

 “Ah.” Lee must know where she can find them. Lee is kind even if he is weird. He will help her. “Thank you, Gumiya-san. Or should I call you Gumiya-sensei?”

 The chūnin cackles and send her away after ruffling her hair. She is glad they didn’t comment about its short length.

 

(She is right. Lee gives her the information she needs if in a very enthusiastic way. He cries tears of joy when he discovers of her motivation. “ _Such youthfulness, Sakura-san! I hope you are successful in your path.”_ And she will be, for she is a paper ninja. Give her paper and ink, and teach her enough to do her own thing, and she will shine.)

 

* * *

 

Admittedly, walking into Training Ground 19 and finding Tenten walking with kunai attached to her shoes should be kind of surprising. In her defense, it’s not, because it is fucking _early_ , the sun has not even risen yet.  The girl is training, so Sakura knows to wait. She sits below a tree and observes.

Tenten seems to be channelling her chakra to both ends of the kunai because otherwise it would hurt her or create patches in the grass. It is difficult, she notices. The girl’s legs are trembling, and her arms keep flailing around in the air  in an attempt to balance herself. She has no grace in her movement. She is clumsy, like some kind of baby learning how to walk. It must hurt, to keep herself like this. But, she is trying and doing it with some success, even if the kunai go deep in the earth every now and then. Sakura knows she was seen at some point, but this is Team Gai’s training ground, not hers, so she keeps quiet. When the other girl ends her exercise, Sakura gets up and approaches her. “Hello, Tenten-san.”

 “Hello to you too. Sakura, right? Lee’s crush?” Now they are next to each other, she can see the sweat dripping from her forehead. And arms. And neck too.  She is right, it _is_ a difficult thing what this girl is trying to do.

 “ Yes. Actually, I was kinda hoping you could help me…”

 “Yeah? What is it?”

 “So, I heard you know something about sealing…”

 

 (Tenten doesn’t know just something. She _ate_ every scroll her teacher brought to her. She does not remember everything, but every bit of theory she could remember, she gleefully shares with Sakura. About how seals need a source of energy to work and how to draw differents sources and about how Konoha seals have five points normally, but other countries use differents methods and how to make her own customized explosive tags. She shares some already designed seals too. In return, Sakura gives her all the knowledge she has about chakra control. She even creates routines for Tenten, and while the other girl says that Sakura doesn’t need to do that, she accepts it. Sakura is from a merchant family; she knows the price of things. And since Tenten is offering her time, her _skills_ , she will be paid for it. If Tenten wants to be like one of the Sannins, then alright. Sakura will help her.

 Tenten is not very good at doing boring things, like the leaf exercise, but Sakura has other ideas.The pink-haired girl makes her follow the routine with senbon sticking to her arms, and _it works_. She forces her to put more kunai to her feet, to tree-walk with it too, until she can do it with her eyes closed and without stabbing the trees. They aren’t ready to water-walk yet, but it is alright.)

 

Gai is alright too. He is a very good teacher, appearing for the first time when she is ink-deep in one of Tenten’s own seals. Tenten is busy explaining the choices she made and the particularities of it, so she doesn’t spare more than a good morning to him. Sakura tries to be more polite, but Tenten keeps talking relentlessly, leaving her no choice other than to give the girl her full attention.

 She apologizes to him later, but Gai waves her off and instead comments about her youthfulness to learn. He is _loud_ and downright _weird,_ but Gai teaches _both_ her and Tenten. He gives them his opinion and offers suggestions about how they could do better. He _explains_ theory to Sakura when she asks and even _helps_ her to correct her taijutsu when all she wants is everything to explode. She is still bad, but not very much anymore.

 

(Gai is kind of awesome, and she envies Tenten for having him as a teacher. Just a little bit. Inner likes him a little too, even if he is strange, because she has been with him less than a month, and he looks _at_ her, not _through_ her like some people do. He sees potential and keeps encouraging her to do her best. Sakura is definitely keeping these two.)

 

* * *

 

Tenten teaches her in the mornings, and in the afternoon, the girl trains with her Hyuuga teammate. Gai could teach her in the afternoons, but Sakura gracefully declines. Taijutsu is not something she is interested in, but genjutsu? Sakura is very interested in that, and she has so much theory to catch up on.

 Her parents were genin before retiring and becoming merchants. Sakura’s reserves are the same as other students from civilian families, and they haven’t grown since graduation, which is a big oversight in her part. But it is alright. She is correcting her mistakes. After all, Sakura is a paper ninja through and through. Give her paper, give her ink, give her books, give her theory, and she will fucking _shine_ . She wasn’t the best kunoichi of her year because she was _pretty_.

 And if she grows and learns during this month, well, it isn’t just for her teammates. Sakura is not considerate like that, even if it is a nice side-effect. No, Sakura is selfish. She is doing this for herself. And if...if she is keeping her new skills for herself, it is her decision. A good ninja hides in the darkness. An excellent one? In plain sight.


End file.
